Today in NC State History: Not enough budget for books

September 13, 2013

By Bill Krueger

Money was tight, apparently, and university officials were concerned about keeping the books in order. Not the financial books, mind you, but the books kept in D.H. Hill Library.

It was on this day in 1967 that the Technician reported that D.H. Hill would be closing early (at 11 p.m.) on weekdays because the university had not received enough money from the General Assembly. I.T. Littleton, director of the library, said the move was necessary to maintain the book stacks “and keep the books in order.”

Littleton had hoped to get additional money to help the library meet the increasing demands of a growing number of graduate students.

“We could have continued to keep the library open if we had gotten an increase in our wages and personnel budgets from the North Carolina General Assembly,” he said. “All we got was enough money to maintain the present services.”

The story noted that the library had lost several “valuable sets of books from the Reference Room” in the last few months.

“The number of books missing has increased significantly ,” Littleton said. “We have not been able to maintain the security of the building during the late hours. The opportunity to steal books is greater when we have fewer people staffing the building.”